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Open Source Usability — Joomla! Vs. WordPress
An anonymous reader writes "PlayingWithWire profiles two open source tools for Web development, comparing Joomla! and WordPress through the lens of usability. The article has apparently upset a few people at the Joomla! forum, but it does bring up a good point. Many open source projects are developed by engineers for engineers — should they focus more on usability? PlayingWithWire makes a bold analogy: 'If Joomla! is Linux, then WordPress is Mac OS X. WordPress might offer only 90% of the features of Joomla!, but in most cases WordPress is both easier to use and faster to get up and running.'" The article repeatedly stresses that blogging platform WordPress and CMS harness Joomla! occupy different levels of the content hierarchy. How fair is it to twit Joomla! on usability?
He is comparing the usability of the two very different applications for a quite limited scenario, namely setting up very simple web sites with only a few static pages. For larger projects Wordpress simply won't do the job, but in that simple case, I agree that WordPress is a often much better choice. For my personal homepage I tried out lots of Open Source CMS, but finally got stuck with WordPress + some plugins. It does a surprisingly good job as CMS, but I would not recommend it for - say - my company's website.
Yes, They were about as upset as I would be if someone compared my minivan to a Ferrari and came to the conclusion that the Ferrari was faster.
Like one of the commenters said, it is comparing apples with oranges - Wordpress is for blogging, so blogs are easier to produce. Joomla if a general CMS system, capable of more, but slightly harder to use if you just want a blog.
Errr... yes?
How can you possibly answer "no" to that question? Do you want your stuff actually being, you know, used by people? There's a reason it's called "usability" and not bumblebee.
Go read up on the arguments against the GoboLinux filesystem structure. (These Ubuntu folks have a bunch). There are some fairly passioned "screw the n00bs" rants out there. Does anybody honestly think that the traditional Unix filesystem heirarchy makes an ounce of sense in 2009?
Both vi and EMACS seem to have taken the "fuck the users" approach to heart. I suppose I might be of the wrong mindset to operate either application, though the developers could have at the very least taken the time to provide a decent set of documentation for their astonishingly-complex applications.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
I have administered (and currently administer) a number of sites for various clients across a wide range of publishing systems - flat html, php, various CMSes running on Linux, UNIX, and Windows servers.
I cannot find the words to convey the depth of the hatred and loathing I feel for Joomla. It embodies the worst of Open Source - as if it were written by a million angsty teenagers suffering from ADHD, with duplicated functionality across a hundred different modules, little or no sensible documentation, and the usability issues...! Most CMSes try and at least look like some thought has been given to how people in the real world will use them. Joomla feels and behaves like it was designed to be DELIBERATELY confusing, as if the author of any given module was sneering at his imaginary end user, thinking "it's perfectly obvious to ME what to do here, fuck you if you can't work it out, n00b".
Gah! Just thinking about Joomla makes me want to go and wash my hands.
Blind, uninformed apple criticism gets modded troll. The Mac community isn't all sycophants and dummies any more than the Linux community is all revolutionary closeted sociophobes. Guess what? I have a laptop running Linux, a desktop dualbooting Windows and Linux, and a MacBook running OSX with Windows 7 and XP in VMs.
It's not just that different software appeals to different people, though that's part of it. Different software has different purposes. I've tried at length, and Linux (or OSX, for that matter) don't offer anything comparing to the ease-of-use and efficiency of running a tablet PC in Vista with OneNote for academic settings. I've set it up in Linux, screwed with input drivers for weeks on end, only to have a hacked, barely workable solution. In Windows, I had excellent handwriting recognition and a superb interface with good features. Yeah, Windows is a fundamentally flawed OS - but they all are. Maybe Windows more than the others, but it was what I needed for that purpose.
Macs are similarly useful in the academic community, as well as for designers and editors. Yes, Linux is a great OS, but it simply doesn't have photoshop or anything that compares to it. GIMP is a clumsy hack and is frankly like Paint in comparison. Gnome, KDE and Explorer have nothing on the frankly revolutionary changes Mac has seamlessly implemented in the last few years. There are a lot of poorly implemented whizbang features like Time Machine's GUI or Safari 4's Top Pages, but there are also features like Spotlight, Expose, the new stacks in the Dock, and Quick Look, none of which the competition can approach with a ten foot pole.
Call me back when Linux works with my hardware out of the box (and don't give me any of the normal bullshit; I've tried it on five laptops and two desktops in the last couple years, most of those very recently, and it never Just Works; I can tinker, but I shouldn't be expected to and certainly won't be won as an apostle if I need to). Call me back when Linux or Windows have system-wide drag-and-drop that lets me drag an image off a webpage or into an chat window, or from my desktop into the Mail icon to start a new mail with an attachment, or from an email to a filesystem icon which pops open, lets me browse my hard drive by hovering and dropping where I want, and then goes away.
I'm the first person to advocate open source, the last person to advocate Windows, and no stranger to alternative operating systems. But the ridiculous closedmindedness of the FOSS community is exactly why it is so curmudgeonly and slow when it comes to any widespread adoption. Nobody cares what a bunch of zealots have to say because their zealousy discredits them from the offset. The new Macs are all remarkably well-constructed, fast machines with good features and a superior operating system for the vast majority of end-user and even power-user purposes. If you need more, buy another computer or install another operating system, I won't complain. But flatly decrying the entire platform is stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Have you used any adobe programs lately? the UI is an abomination (especially on the Mac!). Check this website number sometime. I dropped major cash for Adobe CS3 Master Suite for OS X last year. Major mistake. The UI doesn't look or feel native, is slow, full of quirks, and hard to use.